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I broke my Ubuntu and it is failing to boot.

I've tried to save it but failed.

My PC has Windows and Ubuntu.

The good thing is that I can access all my files through windows.

I will install Ubuntu on a different partition and copy the backed up data to it.

But I am not sure which folder contains most of my data like installed programs and personal files.

Abhinav Dharmesh
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1 Answers1

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For most users, personal files are in your /home directory. Most is stored in "hidden" files, which are simply normal files and directories that start with a period (.) like ~/.config/ -- make sure you capture lots of those.

Do not bother backing up "installed programs". Done properly, those are distributed to several places in the filesystem. Those are easily replaced by apt or snap on your new system.

user535733
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  • So I can replace the old home folder with the one in the fresh installed Ubuntu?? – Abhinav Dharmesh Nov 08 '22 at 12:23
  • Yes and that normally is most of your settings & data. If you manually edited some system file in /etc, you may need to save that but not copy back without checking. I edit grub and just save a copy in /home for my backup. Best to export a list of installed apps when system is working to make it easy to restore. https://askubuntu.com/questions/464701/find-out-what-packages-were-installed-after-os-install & you can exclude temp data in /home. http://askubuntu.com/questions/545655/backup-your-home-directory-with-rsync-and-skip-useless-folders – oldfred Nov 08 '22 at 13:56
  • Thanks a lot man. – Abhinav Dharmesh Nov 08 '22 at 16:08
  • If you created cron jobs, you may also want to backup /var/spool/cron/. – Jos Nov 08 '22 at 16:11